BEFORE: Last January I watched the biopics on Richie Valens, Ray Charles and Johnny Cash - and some time later, I got a copy of this film, focusing on Cash's touring buddy, Jerry Lee Lewis. So this is a follow-up of sorts.
THE PLOT: The story of Jerry Lee Lewis, arguably the greatest and certainly one of the wildest musicians of the 1950s.
AFTER: The suggestion here is that Lewis was the original "bad boy" of rock and roll, who (along with Elvis) set the tone for Jim Morrison, Hendrix, The Stones, and countless others, right up to today. But to a large extent, famous entertainers have always done what they want, whether that involved booze, drugs, or sleeping around. Marrying one's 13-year old second cousin, although scandalous at the time, could be seen as kind of tame in the ensuing years of groupies, hard drugs and sex-tapes.
While the film does an adequate job (I suppose) of bracketing Jerry Lee Lewis' place within the spirit of the 1950's - car-hops, poodle skirts, nuclear war fears - there's also a fair amount of corniness here. The goofy expressions of Dennis Quaid (last seen in "The Rookie") while performing, which only highlight the abysmal use of lip-synching, don't help - nor do pseudo-music videos that feature "impromptu" dance numbers, which are obviously heavily choreographed, or an abundance of teenage (and older) girls who are reduced to mindless scream-bots upon seeing a recording star.
Then we get to the whole marrying one's cousin thing. While it's part of Jerry Lee's story, that doesn't make those scenes any easier to watch. Even though it took place after their marriage, I thought the sex scene was too suggestive - it's still a 13-year old girl, for chrissakes! And it's Winona Ryder, America's sweetheart! (last seen in "Alien: Resurrection") Wouldn't it have been better to leave the camera out of the bedroom, and just leave it to the audience's imagination?
Also starring Alec Baldwin (last seen in "Talk Radio"), Stephen Tobolowsky (last seen in "The Time Traveler's Wife"), Trey Wilson (most famous as Nathan Arizona from "Raising Arizona"), with cameos by Steve Allen (as himself), Peter Cook, Mojo Nixon (!!)
RATING: 4 out of 10 ice cream cones
EDIT: This film represents an inadvertent Birthday SHOUT-out, #3 for the year. I found out after the fact that January 8 was Elvis Presley's birthday (or is, if you believe he's still alive somewhere...). Perhaps I unconsciously knew that Elvis appeared in this film as a character - though not played by the King himself. The King would have turned 76 today if all that fast living hadn't caught up with him...
In this film Elvis was played by Michael St. Gerard, who also played him in another film, "Heart of Dixie", as well as on a 13-episode TV series, and on an episode of "Quantum Leap". He also played Link Larkin, an Elvis-type singer in the first "Hairspray".
And Mojo Nixon had a song named "Elvis Is Everywhere", so it's all connected.
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